Chevron buys downtown property

Chevron Corp. has expanded its downtown property portfolio with the acquisition of a public parking garage at 1400 Louisiana.

The purchase was made “in the interest of increasing parking flexibility for our employees over the long term,” spokesman Russell Johnson said in an email. For now, the garage will remain public.

The 10-story property sits on around 31,000 square feet of land. Chevron purchased the property from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. out of Dallas. The purchase price was not disclosed, but the assessed value for 2012 was $13.7 million, according to the county’s appraisal district.

Yeah a lot of those people coming from San Ramon are gonna need their own little private space. They have been spoiled rotten out there at HQ. Heck they are coming here as a reward because they were whining about their tax situation. And the company saves by having them here as well.

Yeah because everyone hates working and living in a beautiful, tree filled forest iwth lakes and streams and fresh air and modern homes and stores. They’d much rather work on hot concrete with no trees and bums peeing in the alleys and then having to ride a bus for an hour home.

Joe, I guarantee more people in the Exxon facility will either eat in their cafeteria, at their desks, or drive to other lunch options. Nobody will walk to lunch, and the vast majority of the year for the vast majority of employees, they won’t go outside in the woods.

Meanwhile, back in downtown, office employees walk to restaurants at street level or in the tunnels. It happens every day, and the bums are mostly in other parts of downtown.

Joe, not everyone wants to live or work near the Woodlands, especially if everyone and their dog is moving to the same location. There are people who prefer to live in Katy, Baytown, Clear Lake, Pearland, or Sugarland who will be burdened by an even longer commute. Whatever charm that exists in the Woodlands will be replaced by more congestion. The decision to build this campus when an opportunity existed to revitalize downtown and surrounding areas was overlooked by EM. I don’t buy that higher city and county taxes are so burdensome that a company as large and deep pocketed as Exxon is bleeding cash trying to keep up payments.

Fresh air and streams and tree-filled forests? Where exactly are these Utopias? They certainly aren’t in the Energy Corridor and you must not have looked at the aerial photos of Exxon’s new campus where clear cutting was the norm… At least downtown offers transit options and cultural events. I’d much rather see a bum while walking to a bar, restaurant, movie, play, concert, rockets/astros/aeros game than see one at a stoplight while stuck in suburban traffic hell.

When Continental merged with United and moved most of the jobs to Chicago there was talk in the works that Chevron wanted the 1600 Smith building to have the 4 corners. I am sure the plans are already drawn for the highrise to be built on the old YMCA property. Congrats to Chevron for choosing Houston as their home base. I wish Continental/United would have stayed in Houston.